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Death is natural.

A year ago a very dear uncle passed away. I had gone to meet him a couple of days before he passed away. It is always painful to see a loved one approaching their end.

My uncle just lay there very calmly and composed as if in a deep sleep. I said a silent prayer for this kind and wonderful man who has brought joy to many people in his life. I prayed that he be allowed to go from this world with dignity and in the natural way.

The family sat dignified and composed, only the stooped shoulders, dark patches under the red eyes revealed the deep anguish within their hearts. They were practical and respectful of my uncle to know when to stop fighting and to yield to God's will.

My mind raced across the past to review the passing away of other people and even organisations. Just like people, organisations also have a life. This life should be loved, nurtured and developed to grow and thrive, and then be allowed to die respectfully when its time is up.

Driven often by maintaining pretenses and by stupidity, enormous resources are spent in trying to fight off the inevitable, trying to keep a dying person or organisation alive at all costs.. This is not only with individuals but also the government.

I would like to share my own experience with you;

My family owned a rather large and flourishing manufacturing business. Widely respected and admired by customers, vendors, employees and lenders, we were extremely successful by being mild in manner but aggressive in our pursuit for building a highly respected world class organisation.

However when you are very successful and grow too fast you can easily become blind to many deadly things that can crash into you. We had not anticipated many things, such as the deep recession, the failure of lenders and customers to live up to their written commitments and our inappropriate if not foolish response to the recession.

The organisation had a huge fixed cost in overheads wage bill, interest burden, utilities and government levies and taxes etc. In good times our friends know us and in bad times we come to know our friends. May God bless them the people that supported us and gave us any relief. Surprising to others but not to us our greatest support came from our employees.

The reason for their support is not difficult to find. Our employees believed that the organisation, its owners and colleagues were all an extended family. Treated fairly with love and respect, and ample opportunity to develop and grow as individuals and benefit monetarily, they naturally responded with support and sacrifice.

Unfortunately the government, customers, suppliers and mainly lenders nearly all of them run by faceless people were extremely ruthless. They shared no bonds between themselves, nor with their stakeholders, or us, they were just briefcase carrying mercenaries. Seek and exploit was and remains their code.

While the employees and we owners struggled to preserve. The lenders like Shylock just wanted their pound of flesh even if it meant killing the organisation.

When in anguish, in the family world we run to our parents and family for solace and support, and in the business world we seek comfort and support from the government and the administration.

Unfortunately governments almost always cannot provide time and space to keep organisations alive and allow them to regain their health . Yet they have and exercise without hesitation the right not to allow the critically ill to die.

We sought support and if not possible a quick death for our companies so that all stakeholders could share whatever could be salvaged. Foolishly bureaucrats within the government demand with indignation that people and organisations live.

It is tragic but many social and economical problems are converted into political problems.
Just like insisting on spending vast amounts of money to keep a terminally ill person for extended periods drives many families to bankruptcy, so does the government insists that organisations must survive at all costs. However nothing useful can be salvaged by wringing the dead organisation.

Eventually everyone loses, employees, owners, lenders, suppliers and society. The so called taxes, loans, and workmen dues are almost never recoverable and the organisation becomes a ghost neither living nor allowed to legally die. Ghosts do nothing but haunt.

Death is natural. Let us respect ourselves, our loved ones and our organisations. Let them die with dignity when they cannot live anymore.

_____________________

The Rupee and the economy are in dire straits, many organisations are not likely to survive. A lot of people will be tormented and huge resources are going to be wasted in foolishly doing the politically right thing.

As Albert Einstein put it appropriately, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure of the former."

Comments

My Dear Gurvinder Singhji,I appreciate your concern about the subject matter, knowing that you have gone through such traumatic circimstances. It is indeed time and experience that puts us back to realisation, when we transcend to quieter moments and looking back we become electic. The principles of Freemasonary teach us in the first degree, when we are admitted poor and penniless into the Lodge, as if we are born, the third degree then, teaches us how to die . That my dear is the essence of this mortal life.

I wear many turbans, serving as a teacher, consultant and advisor to many organisations most of whom are quite sincere in their efforts to improve performance and profitability. Sincerity is key for success, as are the attitudes, skills and knowledge, of people. Yet organisations fail to succeed primarily because of a lack of good and relevant management systems. Good or bad, every functioning organisation evolves a culture a system and a way of doing things. Good systems are well thought out and are relevant. They delight customers, improve morale and helps the bottom line. Customers are usually delighted by high quality of products and services, and prompt deliveries. Their design is robust and effective, preventing problems and facilitating rapid correction with minimum heartache and headache. Bad systems on the other hand lead to bottlenecks and paralysis, caused by too much centralising of work or a large lumbering bureaucracy. Centralising occurs when organisations and systems r…

About Me

I see myself as a spirit on a human journey, continuously discovering myself and our universe.
Am a widely travelled, experienced social, management and technology innovator / entrepreneur.
I seek to use my experiences and capabilities for evolving better ways for society to live, work and play.
Serving, teaching and consulting helps me to learn and evolve.